Josh sold Ammon's car to his fellow employee Mike in August. It was kinda sad to see it go...I liked that we had two very recognizable, twinner cars in town! But, it was a necessary action seeing as Ammon purchased another car in June (a used VW Golf GTI which is actually OLDER than this black Scion XB but I guess it's cooler so oh well??), and once the title for that FINALLY arrived (even though we told him NOT to purchase a car from a private source without a title and yet he still did and it took FOREVER to actually get), and he was able to drive it--it needed to be added to the auto insurance list, so this one had to go... It's weird seeing it driven around town, and thinking it's my son behind the wheel, but actually it's not!
Josh captured this image at the golf course one morning of a deer having breakfast on its two hind legs!
I hosted book club at the beginning of August. Within two weeks, I'd hosted Bunco, my dominoes group, and then this ladies book club! It was fun for me to have people over at my house, and summer is the ideal time to do it! We snacked on the back deck, and talked about the book "The Invention of Wings". The genre was historical fiction, and I really enjoyed it! We had great conversation, and an enjoyable time together! I went to one before that, and two after that, and I think it was my favorite Book Club event of the year!
Speaking of books--I haven't read any since my first year of college four years ago. I had so much reading to do for my classes, that I stopped reading books for pure enjoyment. I finally picked it back up this summer! It was nice! I read two HUGE books in the Outlander series to go along with the TV episodes that Darcy and I watched weekly, and I read two books for book clubs. I've read two more books since then for book clubs, too: "A Man Called Ove" and "House of Scorpion". I liked reading the Outlander books and seeing the similarities/differences in the TV series, but they are rather long, albeit interesting about the historical Scotland culture. I really liked "A Man Called Ove" and "The Invention of Wings", and highly recommend them. "The Keeper of Lost Things" was alright, but predictable, and "House of Scorpion" was not my regular style of reading, but very fascinating.
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| The Outlander books are SO long! One was over 600 pages, the other was over 800! |
The next two pictures were taken on the same date of August 4. One captures Josh's surroundings, the other was mine...I think Josh's work was much preferable to the work I did that day!!!
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Kanyon and I went through all his drawers
and "grow boxes" to figure out what clothes
he needs for school. These are what we are
getting rid of! We donated them to the
LDS clothing fair in Salmon in September.
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Josh and Ammon competed on a two-man team in the Quality Motors 2-Man Best Ball Tournament. It was a two day tournament, and they wore matching clothes the second day! It must have been a good luck token, because they won in their division! (Last year they got second in their division, so it was awesome that they won this time around!)
Ammon got ordained to be an Elder in the Melchizadek Priesthood at church by his dad on August 12--his last Sunday in Salmon before he left for college. It all was a surprise to Josh and I--we really had no clue it was happening until just a couple of days before Sunday. Ammon's friend Kennadee came to church with us that Sunday. It was the first time she'd ever come to the LDS church, and it was fun to have her sit with us!
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Stake President Stokes, Grandpa Tolman, Ammon, Josh, Uncle Tim, Bishop Williams
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Every August, "smoke season" officially starts in Salmon, and this year was no exception. The Rabbit Fire, in the mountains between Salmon and Challis, was HUGE and the smoke from it filled the sky for weeks. It always makes for pretty sunsets, but it's hard to breathe the air, ashes are on the outdoor surfaces quite often, the sky is hazy and hard to see, and it feels depressing to enter the smokey zone!
Kanyon went to a day XC camp with the West Jefferson team. They hiked up the Menan Butte, ate at the Pizza Pie Café in Rexburg, had a waterslide on the school hill, watched a movie, ate sub sandwiches, and slept out under the stars. They actually had a two-day camp, but Josh and I were leaving to take Ammon to school on the 2nd day of the camp, so Kanyon only went to the first day, and left at dinner time so we could drive back to Salmon. He had a TON of FUN with his new teammates! It was a great way to build team unity at the start of the season!
On the day that Josh and I drove Ammon to Moscow, I began to develop a rash in my armpit. It steadily spread and worsened until it was in both armpits, spreading down the sides of my breasts, under my breasts across my abdomen, in my stomache/groin area, and then in between my fingers. At first I thought it was a heat rash, and then I thought maybe it was due to stress, but no matter what I did to try to alleviate the problem, it just worsened. Finally, on Sunday the 19th (4 days after it started), I couldn't sleep and I couldn't take it any more. I went to the emergency room, and the doctor ruled several things out and identified it as Candidiasis. He said he was worried that I might be developing Type 2 Diabetes, due to my bloodwork and the overgrowth of yeast in my body and the burn from the motorcycle not healing on my leg after a month. I was prescribed some ointments, powders, and oral medication. It took several days before it even started to improve. I was supposed to go to a district-wide teacher work day on Monday the 21st, but I was so miserable that I took it as a sick day and stayed home in bed. It was awful!!! It was so itchy and uncomfortable every time I moved or if clothing rubbed against the infected areas. It took 2 weeks to get rid of the entire rash. I changed my diet, and only ate probiotic foods for two weeks, which included drinking Kombucha (they are gross in my opinion). When I went to a follow-up at the doctor's office a couple weeks later, she diagnosed me as Insulin Resistant--which makes total sense considering what has been happening to my body the last few years. She prescribed me Metformin, which has helped immensely. I've felt so much better on it and have lost weight, as well.
Ammon's first official day of college was on August 20. I told him to please take a selfie since I wasn't there to take the obligatory "first day of school" pic. He sent me this:
My friend Tanis grows sweet corn in one corner of a field where the pivot sprinkler doesn't reach. She invited several of our friends out to help pick and take what we picked. I brought a few smaller boxes, and she wasn't having it--instead she started stacking them in the back of my car instead! The stacks were two deep, and we got about 250 in!! When I got home that weekend, the boys helped me shuck the corn, and then I did a totally new method for freezer corn--I boiled the water on the stove, and dumped it in to a cooler full of freshly shucked corn. I let it blanch for 10-15 minutes, then let the corn cool on towels that were laid out on the countertops, before I cut and packed the corn kernels. It was SO much faster this way!!! Boiling the water was quicker, and doing so many corn at each step at once was amazing. It still took several hours, but I did about 175 corn cobs in one afternoon rather than over a few day spread!! I was so grateful for Tanis' generosity, because the corn in our garden didn't do very well this year. We rotate the plants, and this year we put it on the east fence rather than the north fence, and it got too much shade and not enough water, so we only had enough corn to eat a few meals--none for processing freezer corn. This was such a blessing, and Tanis is the one who gave me the idea to process the corn this way, too, because she'd cooked some like that to take to a tailgating party and it worked well. It was genius!!
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| I set up a folding table in the kitchen to help with the task. It helped tremendously! |
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| I loved that I could do so many ears at once! |
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| I use an angel food cake pan to help collect the cut corn. |
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| Altogether, I bagged 35 quarts of freezer corn! |
Josh captured this gorgeous sunrise at the golf course one morning:
When I came home for Labor Day weekend, and started getting the yard ready for Kanyon to mow it (move hoses, pick up the dog's bones, etc). One of the hanging hammocks looked weird. It had been twisted and pulled, and everything in the surrounding area had been tipped over or trampled. Upon closer inspection, I saw a single antler twisted in the ropes of the hammock and realized what had happened. Three bucks have been hanging around our yard often during the day, and sleeping there at night. I've let them get comfortable around here, and have allowed them to eat my flowers, bushes, and apples from the tree because opening day is soon approaching and I'd like my boys to have the benefit of hunting them first. Apparently one of them got its antler tangled up in the ropes of the hammock, and there was a struggle. It had fully twisted the hammock around 4 times and had pulled and yanked so hard until it finally broke free, leaving one antler behind. What a unique sight! I shall call him Cinderella, and can't wait to hopefully collect the other "shoe" in October!
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